5.5.17
AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
On behalf of Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University, President Barbara Snyder and I are delighted to welcome you to the Internet of Things Collaborative Symposium.
We thank you for your time today as we consider critical aspects of how to make Cleveland the leader of the Internet of Things revolution, and how to capture the economic development benefits from it for our city and region.
We are here thanks to the leadership of the Cleveland Foundation, which asked our universities to collaborate on defining and building an R&D and educational agenda that positions Cleveland as the center of the Internet of Things.
The Cleveland Foundation also asked if we could identify where our existing asset bases overlap, as well as identify gaps that should be filled at both institutions and not replicated, so that the whole would equal more than the sum of its parts.
Both of our institutions started thinking about our strengths in supporting an Internet of Things portfolio of projects.
At Cleveland State University, we have been making investments and building capacity in the areas of: sensing and computing, human motion and control and infrastructure research.
As we have done this, we have worked to include university-wide participation spanning: technology research; the law, particularly through our Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection; public and urban policy implementation; economic development; and workforce development and education.
In a moment, President Snyder will share more about Case Western Reserve University’s strengths in the Internet of Things.
For both universities, this collaboration will also enhance the international prestige of our programs, which will also benefit the city and region.
Likewise, many of our regional partners -- from Digital C to TeamNEO to Magnet to NEOCC and many others here today -- are also seriously considering how to best harness an Internet of Things effort for our region.
Working together, we can achieve far more than we could alone.
President Snyder and I are pleased to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between our institutions to provide our universities’ leadership, faculty and staff with a mechanism to collaborate and create communities around a common purpose.
This MOU includes a commitment to establish and encourage mutually beneficial scientific, technological and educational activities -- which may include course development, student exchanges, joint research programs and economic development initiatives with third-party partners, among others -- to support opportunities around the Internet of Things.
As noted, these efforts in collaboration with other regional partners will advance Cleveland as the leader in the Internet of Things.